


John Will Rule the Country, While I Run It

by MissWoodhouse



Series: History of Magic [5]
Category: 12th Century CE RPF, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, King John - Shakespeare, The Lion in Winter - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Plantagenet Family Problems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-07
Updated: 2016-01-07
Packaged: 2018-05-12 04:08:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5651902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissWoodhouse/pseuds/MissWoodhouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“No one ever thinks of the crown and mentions Geoff, why is that?” -  Lion in Winter</p><p>In which Prince Geoffrey should be content to rule the magical half of the Angevin Empire and leave his parents to bicker over which of his brothers gets to rule the English muggles.</p><p>Also, in which Eleanor of Aquitaine hates Constance of Brittany even more than she hates her son John.</p>
            </blockquote>





	John Will Rule the Country, While I Run It

**Author's Note:**

> This one is definitely far more based on the plays "Lion in Winter" (1st half) and Shakespeare’s "King John" (2nd half) than on historical fact, although the Eleanor chapters of Helen Castor’s "She Wolves" are wonderful and I highly recommend the whole book to anyone with an interest in her (the other women in there are pretty kickass too: Empress Matilda, Isabella of France, and Margaret of Anjou).
> 
> The idea for this comes courtesy of Song Bird, who suggested an Eleanor of Aquitaine story in the comments on A Historiography of Magic. Sorry it’s not quite the angle you presented, but I’ve always most enjoyed the family drama aspect of the early Plantagenets (and the later ones too).

If Richard had a dash more magic in him, he would have worn the Lion on his robes instead of his shield, for a more foolhardy Gryffindor, Geoffrey had never seen. Of course, then Mother would have been even more obsessed with him, and the Lord knows that shouldn’t be possible. But no, Mother took Richard down Aquitaine with her and had him educated by all the finest scholars of her homeland, magical and muggle alike. He wasn’t even the eldest son! And no one had fawned on Henri like that, even before the rebellion. Father thought he was a brat, and now he’s grooming John to be the same, just because John was too young to have any part in things when the shit hit the windmill last time.

 

Couldn’t any of them see that Richard was a noble dolt, who’d probably do something stupid like go on a crusade and get himself killed a decade into his reign? And John, well, John was just a dolt, who had better learn soon that if you don’t have at least the promise of a carrot to go with the stick, whoever you’re beating will eventually turn around and attack you. If Father wanted to hold the legacy together, he’d stop parceling it out and just give the whole damn thing to Geoffrey, the only one who’d be clever enough to succeed at it.

 

Really, its that his parents resented his magic. They both wanted it for themselves. Of course, if it had been Mother’s darling Richard, or Father’s baby John, it would have been a different story, but by the time anyone had realized there was anything special about Geoffrey (he was always good at hiding things he wasn’t quite sure he wanted known), it was too late. He’d already become too much of his own man to be anyone else’s puppet. So they’d call him the Chancellor of Magic, and give him rocky Brittany (rather like sending him to be educated the middle of nowhere in rocky Scottland) in an attempt get some control over the magical dynasty there. And he’d be John’s little pet official (John was stupid enough to be malleable, Richard was stupid enough not to be) and bide his time, like the Slytherin snake that he was, waiting until the moment was right to strike.

 

All of them seemed to (quite conveniently) forget how much power Geoffrey really had. Magical Britain might have had smaller numbers, but in picking sticks of wood to point at each other, he’d take wands over arrows any day. Nevertheless, it was rather irksome to be always so forgotten about. Back and forth, back and forth, between Father and Mother whenever he let her out, it went John, Richard, John Richard, (what about Geoffrey?), on and on and on. If he weren’t already married, Geoffrey would have half a mind to tell Phillip _he’d_ take Alais and make her his Queen (Father’s sloppy seconds or none), just to win over the French alliance they were busy ripping to shreds for the sheer amusement of it. It would be rather funny as well, since the young French King might be the only person on God’s green earth they underestimated more than Geoffrey.

 

\---

 

God, Eleanor hated that witch. Marrying Geoffrey to Brittany was supposed to get _him_ out of the way and the _Bretons_ under control, but of course not. And now Richard was dead, and the Breton witch of Duchess wanted to sink her claws into the upholstery of the English throne. Not that all magic was bad, certainly not. Eleanor’d had her fun with the all the brightly hued enchantments of the Aquitaine, and perhaps a little too much fun in her uncle’s court at Antioch (although if her monk of a first husband Louis had taken the opportunity to divorce her then, she wouldn’t have been displeased).

 

But the Breton’s were another matter entirely, and Constance a trial that was not to be born. Why had there been a son? Arthur was rather a fitting name she supposed, for a fatherless boy raised by a magician, but Constance was far more Morgana than Merlin, so they similarities stopped there. It would have to be John she put her forces behind, because whatever hair-brained schemes he tried to steal Richard’s throne, none of them were equal to the damage that woman could do. Their King Gradlon might have converted in the 5th century, but those people were far too wild for her tastes, the magic-practitioners especially, who hadn’t let the vices of Lady Dahud drown with the City of Ys. The Parisians and Englishmen might have frowned on the freedoms of the Aquitaine, but they were nothing compared to the debauchery of Brittany. And the Witch would not soil her Lion-King’s throne. Not Eleanor’s life’s work.

 

Of course, managing John would be a challenge. There was a reason, after all, that Henry had been prepared to give Geoffrey the power of a Chancellorship in John’s reign. The boy really was foolish, equally so now as all those years ago at Chinon, when his brothers had tricked him into joining their little plot. Geoffrey would have had it easy – the boy was spineless enough to be Imperiused, and Geoffrey and his wife morally duplicitous enough to do it. Eleanor would have to deal with Henry’s masterpiece (he’d certainly taught the boy to be greedy and stubborn), as well as secure John’s throne. And to think that Johnny Lack-land (Lack-wit, Lack-magic) would someday catch the crown! Only with Eleanor throwing it into his lap, of course, but such details were irrelevant.

**Author's Note:**

> I am far too attached to A.S. Byatt’s novel "Posession," so in imagining the magic culture of Brittany (or at least Eleanor’s perception of it) I couldn’t help but throw in a reference to the Breton legend of Dahud and the drowned City of Ys (sort of like Atlantis, but sexier).
> 
> Other historical tidbits that might have been confusing if you aren’t terribly familiar with this soap opera of a family:  
> • King Richard the Lionheart did go on a crusade, and did die about ten years into his reign. Those two things were unrelated.  
> • King John screwed governing up so badly that the nobles made him sign the Magna Carta. Basically, Eleanor spent the last years of her life fixing his mistakes as he made them, and then she died and things went to hell in a hand-basket rather quickly.  
> • Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine had 4 sons who made it to adulthood(ish): Henry/Henri (also known as the Young King, who tried to seize the throne before his father died and then pre-deceased him anyway),Richard (The Lionheart), Geoffrey (who lived long enough to marry Constance of Brittany, have a few daughters, and get her pregnant with a son before dying himself), and John (who was nicknamed Lackland for awhile because he was the only one of the brothers not to have an inheritance officially laid out, almost like they knew that with four sons, someone was gonna die before the lands actually came up for grabs)  
> • Alais was the half sister of King Phillip of France, and she was supposed to marry Richard (in return for a couple of French provinces and a peace treaty), but somehow ended up (probably) becoming her would-be-father-in-law’s mistress.  
> • Richard named Geoffrey and Constance’s son Arthur as his heir because 1) strict patriarchal lineage says older brother’s sons are in line before the younger brother and 2) John tried to steal the throne while Richard was off on Crusade (which is both rude and bound to piss off God). The French backed Arthur/Constance and Eleanor backed John. John declared himself King and captured/killed Arthur to secure the throne. This dynasty began just as sibling squabble-y as it ended (see War of the Roses).


End file.
